I first heard about this movie when I saw a interview of the main stars on The Hour with George Stroumbolopolous.  And I heard them talking about the Rush angle to this movie. That was more than enough to peak my interest in this movie. Plus I really like the two lead actors – Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. Rashida Jones, daughter of Quincy Jones, also stars as Rudd’s fiance and Jamie Pressely, Jane Curtin & Jon Favereau also lend a supporting hand in this movie.

Peter Klaven (Rudd) just got engaged to his girlfriend of 8 months, Zooey Rice but he is embarrassed by the fact that he has a lack of male friends, especially compared with the close intimate relationships that Zooey has with her group of female friends. Overhearing her friends discussing this oddity, Peter goes on a series of “man dates” with men hoping to get a real friend in time for his wedding. However, he always seems to be ending up in awful situations. Feeling rejected, Peter is about to give up, when during an open house at Lou Ferrigno’s mansion, he meets Sydney Fife (Jason Segel) . The two hit it off very well, despite having different personalities. Later, Peter calls Sydney, and they go out for drinks.

Pretty soon they are spending a lot of time together, including jamming on bass & guitar in Sydney’s garage turned ‘man cave’. They also bond over a mutual love for the rock band Rush – the two of them singing Tom Sawyer in the garage is a highlight of the film! Peter then asks Sydney to be his best man at his wedding and invites him to a dinner with family & friends – where Sydney makes a totally inappropriate toast! Things get a little testy when Sydney borrows $8000 from Peter and puts billboards all over Los Angeles to advertise Peter’s real estate skills. And then Sydney fights with Ferrigno which seems to jeopardize the sale. They break off their friendship for a while.

However, it seems that Sydney’s silly billboards have worked in getting more business for Peter including Ferrigno, who is impressed with the sales technique. Zooey who has second thoughts about their friendship, relents when she sees that Peter is upset on the day of their wedding and she invites Sydney to come. The two friends are reunited and the wedding takes place.

Total dude movie; watch it and you’ll love it. 8 outta 10!

I had kinda given up hope on Manoj Shyamalan’s movies getting the same kinda acclaim as Sixth Sense and Signs did. I liked The Village a lot more than most people did and have yet to watch Lady In The Water & Unbreakable. This movie is similar to the kind of movie that you would expect Shyamalan to make. Although I am surprised by the casting – Zooey Deschanel is not the kind of actress I would have expected in this role and neither was John Leguizamo in his small supporting role. I don’t like Mark Wahlberg but I guess he did ok in this role.

The Happening is about an unexplainable natural disaster that occurs on the East Coast of the US. It starts off in Central Park, New York when people suddenly start to commit suicide in the most accessible manner possible for no apparent reason. Stabbing themselves in the neck by a pen, walking off construction sites, policemen shooting themselves with their own guns etc.

Initially believed to be a bioterrorist attack using an airborne neurotoxin, the epidemic quickly spreads across the northeastern United States, slowly moving from large population centers to smaller and smaller areas. The disease is spread through the air and the onset is depicted by the wind picking up. Wahlberg plays Elliot, a high school teacher, who tries to escape the epidemic with his wife Alma (Deschanel), his friend Jullian (Luguizamo) and Jullian’s young daughter Jess. Jullian dies when he goes back to search for his wife and is infected along with others that he is traveling with. Elliot & Alma take Jess with them as they try to make their way to smaller and more open areas with less people as they get the idea that this infections occurs where there are more people. They are joined by a group of people who soon split into smaller groups as the wind picks up and they start to get infected.

Towards the end, Elliot is left with just Alma & Jess and they take refuge in an old isolated farm house occupied by a paranoid oddball woman, who is unaware of the disaster as she keeps to herself and has shunned technology and interaction with other humans. Soon, however she too is infected and she kills herself by banging her head onto the windows of her house. Elliot, Jess & Alma hide out in different parts of her house until they feel that death is inevitable and they come out to embrace in the field. The wind picks up and the trio wait for the onset of the epidemic…but nothing happens!

As predicted by scientists in the beginning the outbreak abates as quickly as it has started lasting only a couple of days. 3 months later things are normal for Alma & Elliot who have adopted Jess and are also expecting their first child. The Northeast is almost back to normal, save for the deaths and some destruction of property. However, a scientist is shown talking on  tv that this was probably just the signs of a bigger wave of the epidemic, saying that humans have been a threat to the planet and nature is fighting back. We are then shown the same epidemic strike in France as the movie ends.

7 outta 10 for me. I like it but they could have done better!

I’ve known that I wanna watch this movie the first time I read about the subject matter. My interest was even more piqued when I came to know that Paranormal Activity was rated to be  quite scary and gained my admiration when I came to find out that although made on a budget of $15,000, this Orel Peli directed film has made over $192 million worldwide! That is an amazing statistic.

A few points about this movie: I don’t think any Hollywood ace director used to making big budget box office smashes could have done a better job. Trust me on this; it’s a bang up job with a shoe string budget. Choosing the right cast is extremely critical as they are trying to sell it (atleast initially) that this is actual home video footage of & by a real live young couple! That being said, both Katie Featherston & Micah Sloat are wonderfully fresh, authentic and talented to have pulled it off. Well done guys!

From the grainy, bad colour film footage at night to the ouija board that moves on it’s own and then catches on fire – this movie does it all. The ominous moving of plants in the closed living room, the movement of the door and then it getting slammed – fantastic. Katie awakens in the middle of the night to spend several hours standing by the bed staring at Micah while he sleeps – how many of you wouldn’t get a scare to open your eyes and see someone staring at you, even if that someone is your loving partner?

The ending is also very good and effective in scaring the beejesus outta you and you family tree! Scary looking masks, heavy duty monster make  up and special effects are laughed at by this movie. By the end you are stunned, scared and concerned. And begging for more. Gotta watch this one! 8 outta 10!

A Perfect Getaway is a psychological thriller movie released in 2009 and was a minor hit. Based solely on the awesome trailer, I really wanted to see this movie. And I did last evening – and it wasn’t as great as I expected it to be. The film was shot in Puerto Rico and Hawaii, and was released on August 7, 2009 in the US, and on August 12 in the UK and stars Steve Zahn, Timothy Olyphant, Milla Jovovich, Kiele Sanchez, Marley Shelton, and Chris Hemsworth. So what’s the movie about?

• Cydney & Cliff are on honeymoon in Hawaii and spending it by hiking to a remote beach. On the way over there they hear about the gruesome murder of another couple, whose teeth and fingers were cut off after they were killed. They still go on the trip.
• On route they meet Cleo and Cale, a rough looking couple who intimidate them. They manage to insult Cale without meaning to.
• Cliff & Cydney then meet up with another couple Nick & Gina who are vacationing there. They join up to hike to the remeote beach. Nick claims to have titanium plate in his head, a souvenir from his tour of Iraq. He plans to propose to Gina while on the beach but she has no clue.
• It looks like the rough couple are stalking Cliff in an effort to intimidate him. Already looking suspicious, at some point on the island, Kale and Cleo are arrested by the police and are found with a container of pulled teeth in their bag.
• Now you think that the criminals are caught but in a twist to the tale, the timid looking Cliff turns out to be a phycho killer an he shoots Nick while the two of them go canoeing. Nick is stunned but is saved due to the titanium plate in his head – which is what the bullet hit.
• Meanwhile Cydney is cooking and Gina discovers  that the seemingly loving couple aren’t who they say they are. She had idly picked up Cydney’s digital camera and gone through the photos when she realized that the camera actually belonged to the couple who were murdered. She runs to warn Nick and Cydney runs behind her.
• The girls tangle with each other and Cydney managed to stick a knife in Gina’s leg, but the latte pushes the former into the ocean. Cyndey swims back to the beach while Cliff (while hanging onto a cliff) tries to get to Gina. She stabs the knife into his hand and runs away. She meets up with a few people from town who came looking for the canoes that were rented. Cliff confuses them for a while by claiming that Gina is his stoned wife but the people don’t fall for it. Cliff shoots them all dead as Gina runs.
• Meanwhile Nick recovers by this time and catches up with Cliff. He jumps on top of him with a mini axe swinging – it slices Cliff’s hand in two. With the other hand still wounded by the stabbing that Gina inflicted, Cliff is unable to properly pick up a gun and shoot at Nick. Nick gets the upper hand and almost shoots Cliff dead but Gina tells him not to.
• While this is happening, Cydney has flagged down a police chopper and directs them to the scene. She tells them that she has found the killer and that he is planning to kill again. The cops sees the two men and asks which one is the killer. Instead of pointing Nick out and saving her husband Cliff, she tell the cops that Cliff is the killer. The cops see Cliff crawling to pick up a fallen gun and they shoot him dead. Why?
• Turns out that Cliff, whose real name is Rocky, took Cydney out on a date many years ago. She thought that he was a perfect gentleman and just after they made love, he showed her the dead carcass of a neighbour’s dog. He had killed the dog and threatened to kill her if she told anybody. He dragged her into a life of murdering couples and stealing their identities – in  bid to stay immortal, as he claims Cydney saw a chance to get away from that life and that’s why she told the cops that Rocky aka Cliff was the killer.
• And in a sappy ending, Nick, strapped to a stretcher proposes to a weepy Gina while they leave the island in a helicopter. But wait a minute – what the fuck happens to Cydney? That’s a question left unanswered.

Surprise casting; funny man Steve Zahn, who I have always liked, as a psycho killer. The dude is very convincing. And Mila Jovovich as Cydney plays a believable almost ditzy & dumb, woman in love until she shows her true colours. Keile Sanchez, who I have only seen in Married To The Kelleys, is also good. Overall I’d give it a 6 outta 10.

All of you who have heard of this movie may be aware of the history behind it. The story of American President Richard Nixon who resigned from office in leiu of the backlash from the Watergate scandal & you may have heard / seen television presenter / journalist & talk show host David Frost. David Frost is huge part of my childhood, having seen him on numerous tv specials throughout the years I spent growing up in Kuwait. But I wasn’t aware of this series of interviews that the British journalist conducted with Nixon.

The movie is a strong, mostly dialogue driven classy bit of cinema that I shall always remember. So nice to know that such movies are also being made. Here’s why I loved the movie:

• Some crafty casting – Frank Langella, who many have seen as Draculla, Sherlock Holmes and as Skeletor in Masters Of the Universe, did a fantastic job as Nixon. The 70+ year old actor truly did deserve to be nominated for an Oscar.
• And Michael Sheen did a terrific job portraying a playboy, partying and glamorous Frost, who when it came down to it, was also an intense interviewer. I didn’t recognize the Irish actor as the same fella who played ‘Lucian’ the werewolf in the first and third Underworld movies.
• And the supporting staff were wonderful too – Oliver Platt plays an understated supporting role as does Kevin Bacon and Sam Rockwell. I really like Rockwell’s acting in the film.
• Rounding out the cast is the beautiful Rebecca Hall, who plays Caroline Cushing, Frost’s girlfriend who he meets on a plan and who becomes his support & confidant during the trying times that surrounded the interviews.
• The interview sections were some of the best tet-a-tet acting that I have ever seen and is worth watching over and over again. You can cut the tension with a butter knife.

Great movie. 8 outta 10 for me!

I recently watched 2012 on dvd, a copy that I’d bought a few weeks ago. It’s a movie that ultimately grossed over $769 million worldwide, becoming director Roland Emmerich’s second highest grossing film, behind Independence Day.

Such a big budget & big name movie based on the 2012 phenomenon gets a lot of praise and a lot of criticism as well. The special effects are to be commended and the realism of it is absolutely stupendous. Ofcourse not everyone will like it but I did. Here’s my few view points on this film.

• Disaster & big budget films like this are not usually known for the great acting & the memorable dialogues, but I thought that British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor did a very good job. Firefly fans may remember him as the operative from the movie Serenity.
• What I didn’t like and found to be unbelievable is the “suddenness” of the events. Towards the end yes some time is shown to have passed before the arcs reach the Cape Of Good Hope but the rest of it? Doubtful.
• Jimi Mistry doesn’t sound Indian at all in this film. He sounded more authentic in The Guru.
• Another movie where the American President is shown to be heroic and morally a champion. Really?
• I thought Oliver Platt was also really good in his somewhat anti-hero role as the President’s Chief Of Staff.
• Dialogues can be so corny in these movie. Amanda Peet’s character has divorced from her husband, played by John Cusack. She now has a boyfriend, who lives with her and her kids. During all this, the new lover is killed and the family of four is back together again. At the end of the movie, as the arcs sight land and the survivors gather to watch as they approach it, Cusack hugs Peet from behind, she kisses him and says “Where have you been all my life?” Answer: Waiting by the sidelines while you were fucking some other guy, you whore?”
• Nice to see Stephen McHattie in a big budget movie of this nature, even if his role is minor.
• A Star Trek connection – John Billingsly (Enterprise’s Doctor Phlox) also has a minor role.
• (Stargate Universe‘s Dale Volker) Patrick Gilmore too has a minor role as does veteran actor Patrick Bachau.

8 outta 10!

There’s one big reason to watch this movie – the acting of Suleka Matthew. Touch Of Pink is a 2004 film directed and written by Ian Iqbal Rashid and takes its name from the Cary Grant movie That Touch of Mink. The film, revolving around Muslims and being gay.

Alim (Jimi Mistry) is a gay young man working in the film industry in London, UK. He originally left Toronto to get away from his conservative family – his mother Nuru (Suleka Mathew), his aunt Dolly (Veena Sood) & his well meaning uncle Hassan (Brian George). He lives a comfortable life in London, sharing an apartment with his British boyfriend Giles (Kristen Holden-Reid). However his life in the closet is about to be turned upside down when his mother decides to pay him a visit, feeling sad that Alim is not around for the upcoming wedding of his cousin & Dolly’s son Khaled (Raoul Bhaneja).

In London Alim pretends that Giles is just his roommate, whom Nuru doesn’t like and sarcastically calls as ‘egg stealer’ when he eats some of the breakfast she had made for her son – even if there is a lot of it left for Alim. She lays on the guilt heavily for Alim and he even pretends that he is going to marry Delia, Giles’ sister to put on a front of being straight. Giles meanwhile wins over Nuru by taking her out on the town and dancing in the evening. When Nuru finds out that Giles & Alim are actually lovers she is upset & humiliated and leaves back for Toronto.

Alim is upset with Giles that he is not taking things seriously while Giles is angry with Alim for insulting his own mother. They break up temporarily and Alim decides to go attend his cousin’s wedding. While back there, we understand that Khaled & Alim had homosexual relations while they were younger, which Alim is not too proud off. Giles relents and comes to Canada to reunite with his love. Seeing the two of them at the party, Nuru decides to welcome Giles into her family and opens up to her relatives about her son being gay and having a non-Muslim & white lover.

One of the highlights of the movie is that to navigate through his complicated life, Alim uses the spirit of Cary Grant (played by Kyle McLachlan) as his confidante and advisor. The witty banter & conversations between Alim & his imaginary friend are well done. As is Suleka’s acting. It’s not a great film but it does have it’s moments and is worth watching. 7 outta 10!

Ever since I saw Aspen Extreme, I was a Paul Gross fan, even before he floored most of the tv watching audiences who saw him as Constable Benton Fraser in Due South. Men In Brooms is a romantic comedy & sports related movie, revolving around the sport of curling, directed by Paul Gross as well as him being the lead actor.

The cast also includes Connor Price, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Outerbridge, Kari Matchett, Molly Parker and Polly Shannon. Members of the rock band The Tragically Hip make a cameo appearance in the film as a competing rink representing Kingston, Ontario, the band’s home city.

The plot is pretty simple: their old coach dies of a heart attack and his last wishes are that his ashes be stored inside a curling rock and that his  estranged former team – Neil Bucyk (James Allodi) is a dissatisfied mortician in a marriage as lifeless as his customers; James Lennox (Peter Outerbridge) is constantly courting trouble, and this time he’s headed for a date with a thug who’s tracking him down in search of payback; and Eddie Strombeck (Jed Rees) can’t impregnate his wife because of his single digit sperm count & skipper Chris Cutter (Gross) who left town – get back together and play for the prestigious Golden Broom championships.

What follows next is fun practicing, coaching by the evergreen Leslie Neilsen, a love relationship blossoming between Cutter & Amy, the recovering alcoholic sister of his former fiance & daughter of his old coach. Some hilarity occurs during the competition stages and ofcourse, we know that Gross and company will win the tournament. But it’s an enjoyable comedy for grownups and the main theme is novel enough to set it aside from all the other sports related movies. 7 outta 10!

I saw this movie last night after it was advertised for a couple of weeks on HBO. Fracture stars Anthony Hopkins & Ryan Gosling battling it out in a game of wits. Rosamund Pike, Embeth Davidtz & David Strathairn round out the supporting cast of this fine film.

Hopkins plays Ted Crawford, a wealthy & talented Irish aeronautical engineer, who discovers that his wife Jennifer (Embeth Davidtz) is having an affair with police detective Rob Nunally (Billy Burke). Angered, he plots to kill his wife and get away with the murder. It’s a brilliant move! What he does is that he uses the same gun as Nunally and switches them without the latter’s knowledge. He then shoots his wife with Nunally’s gun. At the house, Nunally (who isn’t aware that this is the house of the woman he is seeing) is the only one allowed in to speak with Crawford. When the detective sees that the victim is Jennifer, he rushes to her aid.

Crawford use this moment to switch back the guns. So, Nunally now has the murder weapon and Crawford has his unfired gun. The police are stuck – they have the shooter and a full confession but they have no murder weapon. Or attempted murder weapon – Jennifer is not dead but in a coma. Rising star deputy district attorney William “Willy” Beachum (Ryan Gosling), initially sees this as an open & shut case but is foiled when an initially seemingly uninterested Crawford, serving as his own counsel, instigates Nunally to attack him in open court.

With no evidence to seal the case, the judge is forced to let Crawford go free, especially when the latter says that the confession was coerced out of him by the detective, who was sleeping with his wife. Beachum, who was to join a very lucrative post in a big law firm, is in tatters. He is also unable to stop Crawford pulling the plug on his comatose wife and she dies at the hospital. It is by chance, while his phone & his colleague’s similar cell phone gets switched by accident, that Beachum stumbles onto the plot.

He has the bullet removed from Jennifer’s head and confronts Crawford, tricking him into a full confession. Crawford boasts about the double jeopardy clause, but Beachum reveals that because Jennifer is now dead, Crawford can now be prosecuted for murder, having previously been tried merely for attempted murder. If he had not pulled Jennifer off life support, he could have been protected by the double jeopardy clause. Crawford is arrested by the waiting police.

8 outta 10

I’m a huge fan of Mike Myers, I dig Jessica Alba and I love the sport of hockey – but I gotta admit; this movie failed big time! A box office failure and a critically panned film, The Love Guru seems like an oddly put together, badly acted and badly scripted last minute rush. Here’s my take:

• The best parts are the songs: 9 to 5, More Than Words & The Joker sung by Myers. The scene with Myers singing the Extreme ballad playing on a sitar along with Manu Narayan on guitar is good.
• Bad casting – Verne Troyer as the Toronto Maple Leafs coach. Terrible!
• Bad casting – Justin Timbersucks; can’t sing, can’t act. Is a douchebag!
• The overuse of an actresses’ name as a Sanskrit greeting : Mariska Hargitay! They could have atleast had her cameo appearance at the end of the show instead of towards the beginning.
• The Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup – hahahaha!
• Jessica Alba is wasted in this movie, more like a prop rather than the female lead.
• I did not like Romany Malco as the hockey star. Really bad acting.
• And oh my sweet Satan! What the fuck is Ben Kingsley doing as a really badly cartoon version of a guru. Guru Tugginmypudha – perhaps the name is the funniest part. What a bad accent and dumb acting.
• Ok, I gotta admit it. Watching white people singing & dancing to Hindi songs is funny.
• Myers is funny in places (doing the cool handshake thingy) but overall, it’s a waste of a really good talent.

Bad movie, bad acting, silly script! It all went wrong. The trailer was funnier and more entertaining to watch! 6 outta 10.

I had heard about this movie a few years ago, when I saw the trailer back in 2003 on cable tv. Mambo Italiano, which came out in 2003, is a Canadian movie focusing on the Italian community & culture in Montreal and a gay young man’s life after coming out of the closet. The movie is based on Steve Galluccio’s theatrical play by the same name, which about his real life.

Angelo Barberini (Luke Kirby) is the gay son of Italian immigrants who live in Montreal’s Little Italy, a close knit community. As a child he gets rejected by his only close friend, Nino, when the other kids in school labels him as gay. Angelo’s only other respite is his fun-loving young aunt, Yolanda, an aspiring actress & dancer, who teaches him to dance. However, tragedy strikes when, a little after her marriage, his aunt Yolanda dies in an accident. As a 27 year old man, he is working in the call center of an airline agency, a job he despises.

Angelo shocks his parents – and his sister, Anna (Claudia Ferri) – by moving out on his own without getting married, which is considered to be against the norm for Italians. Shortly after that, he is reunited with his childhood best friend, Nino Paventi (Peter Miller) who is now a cop. They bond while camping and become lovers. Nino moves in with Angelo, at first trying to keep their affair a secret by the illusion of two separate bedrooms. Anna finds out first and becomes a reluctant ally. However when Angelo announces that he is gay and that Nino is his lover, the latter is not happy as he wasn’t ready to come out of the closet.

Nino’s busybody Sicilian mother, Lina (Mary Walsh) is not happy about the situation and sets her son up with Pina (Sophie Loraine). Pina and Nino have also met before and soon, in an effort to become straight, Nino begins a relationship with Pina. The young policeman shuns his lover Angelo to opt for traditional family life, after his patrol partner hints at the scandal that would otherwise ensue. In doing so he demonstrates a clear preference of respectability above passion.

Angelo is distraught at Nino’s rejection and initially blasts at his parents for not accepting him as gay. His only comfort now is his well meaning sister Anna, who takes him to a gay helpline’s meeting. Angelo had earlier called up the helpline and spoke to a concerned volunteer. At the meeting, the same volunteer asks Angelo to help other gay or lesbians out by spending time answering their calls for guidance. Angelo is bad at it but he now begins a relationship with the volunteer. His family has finally accepted him as a homosexual (or ‘omosesual’ as the Italian accents say it) and they welcome him back with open arms.

The movie is warm, funny and a change in styles to the other movies that you normally watch. Paul Sorvino & Ginette Reno as Angelo’s parents are a hoot as is Mary Walsh. 8 outta 10.